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Tolstoy, Kirzner, and Happiness as a Process

By Ryan Young | Oct 4 2024
A recent Liberty Fund Virtual Reading Group explored the theme of joy in Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina. For Tolstoy, happiness is not an end state that a person can reach. It is an ongoing discovery process filled with trial and error. This is similar to the way many economists view markets. One of F.A. ...

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How to Help Consumers

By David Henderson | Oct 4 2024

  The good news is that economics gives us some tried and true ways of making consumers better off. They mainly have to do with allowing competition and allowing increased supplies. Trump did some of that while president. Harris as vice president showed no signs of moves in that direction. Yet many of the policies .. MORE

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From Milton Friedman's interview with the International Society for Individual Liberty (1999): What role of the state, if any, do you advocate? I believe that you do need a state, and you need a government..

Mactoul, October 1

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International Trade

My Weekly Reading for October 6, 2024

By David Henderson | Oct 6, 2024 | 0

A Pro-Immigrant Party Wouldn’t Want To Revive the Failed Senate Border Bill by Fiona Harrigan, Reason, October 2, 2024. Excerpt: The bill did include some reforms, such as additional employment- and family-based visas and work authorizations for the family members of certain visa holders. It would have helped protect Documented Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. legally .. MORE

Economic Education

Bella and Brutto are Different: A Lesson in Comparative Advantage

By Giorgio Castiglia | Oct 5, 2024 | 4

As we dig into the Fall semester, thousands of students will begin their first economics course and be exposed to the world of economic thinking. I used to be a drumming instructor with a music lessons company. One thing I enjoyed doing as a teacher was leaving the student with the capability of performing and .. MORE

Incentives

The Dictator’s Incentives and Trade-Offs

By Pierre Lemieux | Oct 5, 2024 | 16

A story in the Wall Street Journal illustrates some of the dictator’s incentives and trade-offs. It shows that it is not easy to be a dictator, how his country cannot be innovative and rich, and how it is not fun to live there even for somebody happy to serve the regime (Ann M. Simmons, “Spy .. MORE

Macroeconomics

Goolsbee vs. Summers

By Scott Sumner | Oct 4, 2024 | 10

Bloomberg has a couple of articles today where prominent economists respond to today’s strong jobs report. Here is Chicago Fed president Austin Goolsbee: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee lauded the strong September jobs report but warned of putting too much stock in one month’s data, adding that there are risks that inflation .. MORE

Competition

How to Help Consumers

By David Henderson | Oct 4, 2024 | 1

  The good news is that economics gives us some tried and true ways of making consumers better off. They mainly have to do with allowing competition and allowing increased supplies. Trump did some of that while president. Harris as vice president showed no signs of moves in that direction. Yet many of the policies .. MORE

Austrian Economics

Tolstoy, Kirzner, and Happiness as a Process

By Ryan Young | Oct 4, 2024 | 1

A recent Liberty Fund Virtual Reading Group explored the theme of joy in Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina. For Tolstoy, happiness is not an end state that a person can reach. It is an ongoing discovery process filled with trial and error. This is similar to the way many economists view markets. One of F.A. .. MORE

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Bloggers David Henderson, Alberto Mingardi, Scott Sumner, Pierre Lemieux, Kevin Corcoran, and guests write on topical economics of interest to them, illuminating subjects from politics and finance, to recent films and cultural observations, to history and literature.

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Book Club

Books: Reviews and Suggested Readings

Musings on the New Alien Movie 10

I recently watched Alien: Romulus in theaters. I won’t spoil the movie here, but I will say that I enjoyed it much more than the more recent entries in the franchise like Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. The original Alien and its sequel Aliens were among my favorite movies growing up – and Romulus is very successful at capturing the spirit and .. MORE

History of Economic Thought

A Blind Economist’s Insight 6

  The story was NOT apocryphal. An email from Marjorie Oi, the widow of the late economist Walter Oi, prompted this post. I had written an appreciative piece in Regulation in 2014, shortly after Walter Oi died in December 2013. I often don’t like the titles that editors choose; I usually prefer my own. But .. MORE

International Trade

My Weekly Reading for October 6, 2024 0

A Pro-Immigrant Party Wouldn’t Want To Revive the Failed Senate Border Bill by Fiona Harrigan, Reason, October 2, 2024. Excerpt: The bill did include some reforms, such as additional employment- and family-based visas and work authorizations for the family members of certain visa holders. It would have helped protect Documented Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. legally .. MORE

Book Reviews and Suggested Readings

Joy in Economics… and Tolstoy?

By Richard Gunderman

Frontispiece, Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. This article was inspired by a recent Virtual Reading Group on Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, led by Richard Gunderman. Learn more about our Virtual Reading Groups at the Online Library of Liberty. To what field of study would a thoughtful person look to find more joy in life? For .. MORE

Teaching The Odyssey in Economics

By Zachary Gochenour

The story of how I became an economist is its own odyssey: I started college as an English major, intending to hone my creative writing skills, and hopefully to drop out after I wrote the first book of an extremely long, best-selling fantasy epic. The winds of fate blew in other directions and I found .. MORE

The Religion Business

By Arnold Kling

This book is about how the world’s religions have gained such power, what they do with it, and how abuses of this power can be constrained. —Paul Seabright, The Divine Economy: How Religions Compete for Wealth, Power, and People,1 p. 6 Paul Seabright’s The Divine Economy investigates how religions gain adherents and acquire wealth and .. MORE

Ludwig von Mises’ Socialism: A Proper Defense of Liberalism

By Rosolino Candela

A Liberty Classic Book Review of Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, by Ludwig von Mises.1 The hallmark of a great book is its ability to stand the test of time, for its lessons to apply across place and time, and for its underlying principles to resonate with future generations. On the occasion of the .. MORE